


we are like young volcanoes

by drum_island



Category: One Piece
Genre: ASL Brothers, Brotherhood, Family, Gen, Marineford AU where everybody lives, Or do they?, my heart still hurts oda why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 19:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11721405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drum_island/pseuds/drum_island
Summary: “If you were there, do you think…” Koala’s voice is soft yet it carries in the quiet of the colosseum. Tears are stinging his eyes and snot runs unchecked from his nose. His fake beard is itching something fierce and Sabo’s grip tightens on his transponder snail to distract himself from the discomfort. “You could’ve changed something?”In another life Sabo remembers Portgas D. Ace the week before his scheduled execution.





	we are like young volcanoes

**Author's Note:**

> Thought I'd try my hand at a Marineford AU after Oda's "What If" scenario ruined my heart last month.

“If you were there, do you think…” Koala’s voice is soft yet it carries in the quiet of the colosseum. Tears are stinging his eyes and snot runs unchecked from his nose. His fake beard is itching something fierce and Sabo’s grip tightens on his transponder snail to distract himself from the discomfort. “You could’ve changed something?”

* * *

In another life Sabo remembers Portgas D. Ace the week before his scheduled execution.

Not even the country he’d recently helped liberate had been spared from the World Government’s announcement of the planned public execution of Portgas D. Ace, elite subordinate of Emperor Edward “Whitebeard” Newgate and naturally the whole world's in a frenzy. Countless News Coos drop papers overhead, BREAKING NEWS broadcasts streak across the huge monitors in the country’s capital and people are yelling at one another in the streets.

_“D’ya think Whitebeard’ll appear?!”_

_“Not a chance! Whitebeard’s too old—there’s no way Marine HQ’ll lose to him!!”_

_“Don’t rule him out ‘coz he’s old—!! He’s as strong as he’s ever been!”_

_“Whitebeard’ll come for what’s his!”_

Ace’s face (eyes bright and lips quirked in a grin, and how _amazing_  it is to see) frozen in time flashing across the screen stirs something old and forgotten and Sabo’s heart clenches like a vice in his chest.

_“I’m gonna become a pirate…”_

He’s standing in a forest clearing before the edge of a cliff.

_“…and defeat others and become infamous!”_

There’s a kid in a yellow shirt with a pipe as long as he is tall clenched in his fist. The wind blows hair away from a face covered in freckles (how Sabo knows that there are exactly thirteen freckles on the kid’s right cheek, fifteen on the left and nine that creep across the bridge of his nose he’s not sure) and Sabo smells the ocean. Waves crash into the cliff face below spraying froth and seawater into the sky. It’s a beautiful day on Dawn Island, like all the days that came before it.

_“It will be the only proof of my life!”_

The kid’s not looking back at them (his gaze instead is on the ocean—a perfect, endless blue that stretches as far as the eye can see and it’s calling to them, _it always does_ ) but Sabo knows he’s talking to him, to him and Luffy and the world. The kid is talking and the world _damn well_ needs to listen, and listen well. He’s strong, Sabo knows, the strongest person he’s ever known.

He’s Sabo’s best friend (his brother, his _treasure_ ) and Sabo loves him and Luffy more than he’s ever loved himself.

_“It doesn’t matter if all the people in the world reject me or despise me! I’ll become a great pirate and show them what I can do!”_

_Oh_ , Sabo thinks to himself and his world (how did he forget, _how could he ever forget??_ ) clicks suddenly back into place. _Ace_.

* * *

Koala he leaves behind in a rush. If Sabo’s quick enough he’ll be able to make it to Marineford in time for the execution and there is _nothing_ in the world that will stop him from making that happen. No beatings by Koala, scoldings by Hack, glares from Inazuma, or Dragon’s cold stare will make him regret what he’s about to do by any means—not when Ace is worth _so much more_.

No, he will never abandon his brothers ever again.

* * *

His chest burns and his lungs cry desperately for more air as he ducks underneath the blade of one marine captain and punches a haki-coated fist into the chest of another; both opponents land sprawling on the cobblestones but Sabo can’t stop to ensure they won’t rise to fight again, not when his brothers are so close. The battlefield is chaos around him (the sheer _savagery_ of the violence he’s seen this day will haunt his nightmares for years to come), but _Luffy’s saved Ace and Ace was free_ and Sabo just needs to get close enough so that they can all escape together.

In the distance Sabo sees the forms of his brothers with his own eyes for the first time in a decade and his heaving breath catches in his throat. His joy at what he sees soon turns to horror when he spots marine admiral Akainu closing in on Ace and Luffy both however and Sabo wills himself to run faster. He leaps over the corpses of the fallen, dodges more enemies and his boots clap loudly on the concrete. So close! _So close!_

Ace’s crouched before a standing Akainu; magma drips from the marine admiral’s face while his brother’s flames lick up his bare back (and of course he's facing his enemy, Ace has never and _will never_ show his back to anyone, not when he has someone behind him who he needs to protect). Sabo can feel the heat from the logia users even from where he was and knows deep down that fire is no match for magma and _oh fuck_ , he’s gonna be sick—

A bloody and beaten Luffy is on his hands and knees behind their brother—is he picking up something? And why the _Hell_ isn’t that fishman standing there too not rushing forward to pull Luffy away? WHAT WERE THEY ALL DOING??

No!

_NO!_

“The Pirate King, Gold Roger. Dragon the Revolutionary. These two men’s sons being step-brothers is quite a frightening thought. Your fate has been decided!” Akainu’s voice booms, and magma melts down his forehead and right arm. No—Sabo’s not close enough yet!! His lungs scream for more air but Sabo can’t stop now—he won’t stop even if he ends up with a fist through the chest if that means Ace and Luffy are _safe_ —

“Regardless of who else gets away, I swear to never let you two escape!”

Akainu’s hard gaze focuses on Ace for a moment before swinging to Luffy and Ace’s anguished scream sends shivers down Sabo’s spine.

“…Oi!! Wait!! LUFFY!!!”

Faster!

_FASTER!_

“MADE IT!!!”

Sabo with the last of his reserve leaps forward to wrap an arm around each brother (idiots, the pair of them, how dare they be so reckless!!) and hauls them out of Akainu’s line of fire, gracelessly skidding across the ground with his precious cargo unscathed. Both of his brothers look at him with mingled expressions of shock/horror/disbelief/awe when he gently sets them on their feet but Sabo can’t laugh yet, not until they’re all safe and away from this Hell.

The fight has only just begun.

* * *

But it’s in this life that Sabo remembers Portgas D. Ace after his execution splashes across the news headlines.

_“The ones who died in the war are…” Sabo’s colleague announces the day Sabo returns to Baltigo with a month's worth of missions tucked under his belt; the older man’s grip is tight on the GRANDLINE Newspaper and voice chokes with disbelief, “the Emperor—Whitebeard…and…Fire Fist Ace.”_

Sabo’s heartbeat thuds in his ears and he gently raises a procured copy of the paper to his eyes. His hands are shaking and sweat beads on his face. His breath comes in great, shuddering gasps and why is it suddenly so hard to breathe—?

_“I’m gonna become a pirate…”_

Sabo sees his brother’s face grinning at him from under the brim of a ridiculous orange cowboy hat. He counts the freckles (thirteen freckles on his right cheek, fifteen on the left and nine across the bridge of his nose, just like he remembers), and tears come in steady drops down his cheeks and onto his brother’s printed face. The ink bleeds and Ace’s image distorts.

_“…and I’ll show them what I can do!”_

Sabo _screams_.

The trauma (his brother, _his sworn brother_ had fought and died and Sabo hadn’t known—Sabo had been sitting on a fucking _boat in the middle of fucking nowhere avoiding writing his overdue report_ ) throws him into a coma three days long. And when he finally wakes up and Koala’s teary face confirms that his worst nightmare is a reality (that _Ace is gone and is never coming back—that Ace had died and he had done nothing_ ) he regrets and _regrets_ for the rest of his life.

* * *

He stands before them both with a stolen bottle of Dadan’s finest clenched in both fists, grey eyes alight with mischief and a smirk tugging at his lips. Dreams had been boldly declared for the world to challenge and all three were rearing for a fight.

“Did you know, you guys?” Portgas (no, not Gol, _never_ Gol) D. Ace asks, (carefully, carefully) pouring the sake into three cups he’d lifted earlier alongside their caretaker’s booze, “If you exchange drinks, then you can become brothers.”

“Brothers—?!” Monkey D. Luffy demands, stars in his eyes and his grin as wide as his face. “Really!”

Sabo remembers his parents—he remembers their demands, shrill and harsh, his drawing hours in the making torn by unappreciative hands ( _“If you have the time to sit around drawing pictures, why don’t you go to your room and study?!!”_ ), the scorn and resentment and the fact that he wasn’t good enough—he has _never been good enough_ —and how _alone_ he felt. Luffy had told them once that he would rather be hurt than be alone and never has Sabo felt that truer words had ever been spoken— But now— Does Ace mean what he’s saying?!

Sabo looks to the first friend he’s ever made (open stance, open face—he’s been reading it for years now and Sabo knows it better than his own) and _awe_ , unadulterated and pure zings from his heart to the tips of his fingers and toes—Ace means it, he actually _means it!!_ —and a bright laugh burbles unrestrained from his lips.

Ace’s teeth are blinding and he raises his saucer to the heavens. The alcohol inside glints from the midday sun shining brightly overhead and the forest is alive with the sound of crickets and birdsong. Sabo and Luffy on either side raise their own cups and listen to Ace’s words with bated breath. “When we become pirates, we may not be able to end up on the same crew… But the bond of brotherhood we share will never die!!”

Ace’s voice is a promise and Sabo _believes_.

“No matter where we are, or what we do…this is one bond we can never break…!!”

Sabo has never seen Ace look so at ease with the world and Luffy’s smile is a supernova— _how easy it is to fall in love with a smile like Luffy’s,_ Sabo thinks to himself and his own face feels like it’s going to fall off he’s smiling so widely.

“Starting today,” continues Ace and this is the best day of Sabo’s life, “we are brothers!”

* * *

Sabo’s throat tightens with emotion at Koala’s question— _why is this beard so itchy Luffy_ , he thinks desperately to himself, _you idiot, this costume is ridiculous!!_ —and tears fall freely despite his best attempt to keep them at bay.

“Nobody knows.” Koala finishes quietly and Sabo closes his eyes.


End file.
